


On Persistence

by Innsmouth, orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Black Romance, F/F, I'm terrible at both rating things and writing in the third person, Illustrated, Ladystuck 2012, Loads of deliberately silly writing, Ridiculous semi-fantasy AUs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:07:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innsmouth/pseuds/Innsmouth, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to do Nefarious Spider Cultist Things with a fussy barbarian breathing down your neck. It's hard, and no one understands.</p><p>Or, In Which Kanaya Maryam Drives Vriska Serket Right Up The Bloody Walls To The Tune Of A Thousand Bad Fantasy Cliches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Persistence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [untimelyWatchman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/untimelyWatchman/gifts).



The intruder comes from the desert, heralded by the sound of roaring machinery. The halls of the Temple of the Arachnid Mother ring with it, and from her position slouched atop the rather uncomfortable ceremonial seat in the Great Chamber, the high priestess lifts her head to listen. Whatever is piquing her interest falls silent after a moment, but her curiosity has been roused regardless. This does not bode well for the subject of her interest, as Vriska Serket is powerfully curious indeed. However, as she’s about to gingerly ease her aching backside off of the decidedly cushionless throne, the object of her curiosity comes to her.  
  
The acolytes pause in their duties and murmur among themselves as their visitor passes through like a tiger among woolbeasts, none willing to approach.  Vriska merely lounges upon her throne, dangling foot swinging in a small arc. There are things one must do for the sake of appearances, and showing her interest is a sign of weakness in a leader.  
  
Vriska merely tilts her head to the side, raising a claw to pick breakfast out of her teeth as the newcomer halts at the edge of the dais, stiff-backed in furs and steel. The focus of her interest seems to be a jadeblood from the northern reaches of the desert, one of those solitary survivors living on the fringes of troll society. Sand-ravaged though she may be, her armor is in good repair, and her clothes are surprisingly well-tailored. Her horns are tall and slightly curved, better suited for an elegant silhouette than for for locking them with an opponent’s in combat. Vriska’s own horns are an asymmetrical mess, hooked and barbed and usable to frightening effect.  
  
The apparent source of the infernal racket from earlier hangs at the jadeblood’s waist. It’s an abomination wrought in welded steel, a freakish amalgam of whirring chain and shredding teeth. The chain is slick with blood in a veritable rainbow of colors, as if she had chopped through a crowd on her way to the Temple. Vriska makes a mental note to do a headcount on the acolytes. There is a hardness in her visitor’s expression that warns Vriska that this one is Not To Be Fucked With.  
  
Vriska, being Vriska, promptly ignores said warning.  
  
She opens her mouth to deliver a deliberately bored greeting, only to be cut off by a terse “You are Vriska Serket.”  
 It is given not as a question, but a statement, the speaker’s voice stripped to relative quiet by disuse and the harsh desert wind. Not deigning to comment on the rudeness of interrupting the goddamn _high priestess_ , Vriska favors her with a toothy grin.  
“The one and only!”  
  
“And this is _your_ warren of cultists.”  
   
“Yeah! All of ‘em.”

“And you’re capable of—“ she pauses, lip curling in disgust, “—raising a ravening horde of the living dead?”  
  
“Absolutely. What, you want a couple of ghouls or—“

 

  
  


  
  


 

Vriska awakens minutes later sprawled on the floor, surrounded by a throng of anxious acolytes and feeling as though someone has whacked her in the face with a sledgehammer.  The cultists hover over her like vultures, only to scatter as she pulls herself to her feet and shoos them away with a groggy wave of her hand. They scurry off to return to their duties; it’s only a matter of time before Vriska recovers entirely, and none of them have any particular desire to be caught slacking and dumped in the spider pit.

The barbarian is leaning on Vriska’s throne, nonchalant as can be. Vriska grudgingly admits to herself that she may have initially misjudged her, especially in the matter of her arm strength. A surge of irritation churns through her belly. “What the fuck was that for?”

The intruder shrugs, suddenly haughty. “You sort of deserved it.”  
  
Vriska puffs herself up, full of righteous indignation; she shouldn’t have to deal with raggedy upstarts and their surprisingly powerful punches. “I _sort of_ deserved it? Wow, that’s really illuminating. Thanks so much!”

“I meant,” says her assailant, with as much dignity as one can muster while leaning on a glorified chair, “that you’ve provoked my ire.”  
  
“Your _ire_ ,” Vriska echoes dubiously.  
  
“Yes, my ire. It’s a thing that tends to be provoked when a swarm of the walking dead batter down your door in the middle of the day.” Her eyes narrow. Vriska remains completely unfazed. “Your cult is fond of doing that sort of thing, so I assumed that you are to blame.”  
  
Incredulous, Vriska lets her jaw drop. “So you go ahead and _deck_ _me_?”  
  
The jadeblood shrugs. “It wasn’t one of my better moments.”

Vriska gingerly probes at her swollen cheek with her fingertips, only to hastily pull them away upon discovering that yes, her face _is_ in fact sore as fuck. “Whatever. I’ve got better things to do than deal with some crazy bitch from god-knows-where. Just go away, we have a goddess to appease.” She turns, stalking out of the room in order to find a place to nurse both her cheek and her wounded pride.  
  
“I won’t,” calls her unwanted guest from behind.

True to her word, she refuses to leave.

It causes Vriska no end of frustration that she won’t simply abandon her efforts and return from whence she came; after a particularly nasty incident involving her chainsaw and one of the acolytes miraculously acquiring a new stump, her underlings refuse to even contemplate the notion of evicting their unwelcome guest by force. After a week, she moves into a spare room in the acolytes’ quarters. They do their level best to continue on with life as usual around her, which is quite difficult when she’s frowning disapprovingly during the sacrifices and mending the deliberately ratty spider-silk tapestries that hang in every hall.

For days, she lurks around the Great Chamber and in the adjoining corridors, almost giving Vriska a coronary every time she practically blunders into her. The acolytes soon abandon any notion of passing through the darker corners, as she seems to pop up whenever they do. She never seems to tire, always waiting to ambush Vriska and pester her about ceasing cult activity in the region she calls home. There are only so many ways that Vriska can refuse, and she runs through all of them in three days. By Day Four, she resorts to barking a harried “ _Nope!_ ” before her unwanted visitor can even open her neatly lipsticked mouth.

As the days wear on, Vriska becomes increasingly irritated; who the hell does she think she is?  
Vriska has a cult to run, after all, and cults are vastly more important than the request of some feckless barbarian girl, even if said girl has a hell of an arm on her. Request after request after request wears on Vriska’s patience, and apparently her guest’s as well; soon she is not asking, but demanding. Watching, waiting, almost _stalking_ , taking almost every opportunity to hound and harass even into the late hours of the morning; the girl is persistent enough, if anything. It drives Vriska absolutely up the wall.  
  
“My name is Kanaya,” the interloper offers one day.  
  
“I don’t care!” snaps Vriska, and strides dramatically off to yell at the Keeper to feed the damn spiders already.

There’s no escaping her. She sidles into the room at the most inopportune moments; necromantic rituals are dreadfully hard to conduct when there is someone intimidating standing in the corner. The acolytes complain, and even the senior members grumble, but none of them dare act on their discontent. Vriska is left to fend off Kanaya on her own, much to her frustration. Early-evening sparring sessions are her only escape, and she throws herself into them like a zealot.

Given Kanaya’s persistence at stalking her, it shouldn’t come as a shock to see her standing in the courtyard in the unfortunate armsmaster’s place one night, but the bottom of Vriska’s stomach lurches at the unpleasant surprise anyway. Go figure that her one sanctuary has had its walls breached.  
  
Kanaya nods in greeting, and Vriska manages to contain the rather juvenile urge to flip her the bird. “May I join you?”  
  
“For what?” Only as she hefts it does Vriska take notice of the sword in Kanaya’s hand. It looks almost out of place there, compared to her usual monstrous weapon. “Oh. Yeah, why not.” Half of swordplay is observing one’s opponent, and Vriska always does; it’s how she’s stayed in her position for so long without losing any limbs. Naturally she takes the time to do so, and notices quite a lot. She notices how Kanaya’s muscles tense, her advantage in both height and reach, the play of torchlight on the elegant planes of her face.  
  
She notices that Kanaya is both very beautiful and a legitimate threat.

Well. This ought to be interesting.

She lunges, and Kanaya parries hard enough to send her staggering backwards, but a slice at her thigh brings her blade low enough to allow Vriska to sucker-punch her in the mouth. Sputtering, Kanaya half-bends forward, but the following thrust at her leg is easily deflected and countered with a swing at Vriska’s knees. Vriska dodges to one side and slams her sword downwards in a vicious overhead chip that Kanaya is forced to block with both hands. They part, circling one another like hyenas over a carcass.  
“Want to stop?” Vriska asks.  
  
Kanaya shakes her head, determined. “And have you claim it as a victory?”  
  
“Point taken.” A thought occurs to Vriska then. “If I win, you take a hike. Got it?”  
  
“And if I win,” Kanaya counters, “you have to heed my request.”  
  
“Yeah, _right._ Come on, then.”  
  
Kanaya dives back into the fray with a flurry of blows that sends Vriska scuttling backwards halfway across the courtyard. There is little time for thought in the heat of the moment; she loses herself in thrust and cut, parry and riposte.  
After twenty minutes, they call it off, sweat-soaked and arms arching. “You didn’t win,” Vriska calls out as Kanaya her opponent walks away.  
Kanaya pauses, then turns to face her. “No,” she says, “but neither did you.”  
She returns to her makeshift quarters to the melodious sound of Vriska grinding her teeth in frustration.  
The priestess thankfully fights off the urge to start breaking things in a fit of rage, and instead stomps through the corridors of the Temple like a woman on a mission, acolytes frantically scurrying out of her way. She spends the rest of the evening throwing bits of raw cluckbeast to the giant spiders in the pit and brooding over just _why_ it is that such a colossal pain in the ass has been inflicted upon her. Clearly some higher, non-eight-legged power has it in for her.

Vriska invites her visitor to her chambers the next night, hoping to shock her with the opulence of her surroundings and finally shut her up. What she does not expect is for Kanaya to raise one perfectly-maintained eyebrow and nod in polite dismissal. It incenses her on some level; she _should_ be impressed.  Vriska killed for her position and should be respected. She says as much after a minute of tense silence.  
  
Kanaya simply shrugs.  
  
“Fucking _look_ at all of this stuff!” Vriska growls. “It’s more than you’ll ever see again in your life, and I ripped each and every piece from the cold hands of some poor sucker too dense to surrender. I _earned_ all of this.” Another shrug is her only reward, and Vriska’s teeth grind together hard enough to creak. “Not even going to say anything? Are you _that_ ignorant, or just stupid?”  
  
Kanaya’s lip lifts in something approaching contempt.  
“I’m probably underestimating the value of your wealth, but at least I’m not acting like a petulant wriggler because my guest won’t let her jaw hang open in amazement at the sight of my tawdry hoard.”  
  
In a moment Vriska’s fingers are clenched around her collar, and she pulls Kanaya close enough to see the minute jade capillaries in the other woman’s eyes. “Listen to me,” she snarls, and oh, _finally_ she sounds lethal for once in her life instead of shriekily indignant, “I’ve been _trying_ to drop a hint big enough for you to get, but I think I’ll just spell it out for you because you’ll never get it on your own. _Stop. Fucking. Around with me._ ”  Kanaya tilts her head forward until the two of them are nose-to-nose.  
“I will stop fucking around with you,” she says, every word precisely enunciated and so icy as to grow frost, “when you actually acknowledge that you’re causing a problem and begin to resolve it, rather than—“  
Vriska kisses her hard then to shut her up, fangs snagging on Kanaya’s full lower lip; the other practically dives into it, and there is a faint _click_ of teeth as she leans in. It’s not out of love, it could never be; Vriska’s ire is too irrevocably provoked for that. Vriska promptly stomps on her foot, and Kanaya stumbles, but recovers in short order and bears Vriska down to the floor. The spider priestess struggles, but to no avail; though they’re equally matched in armed combat, her wiry frame is wholly unsuited for grappling. She’s pinned easily as Kanaya works a hand between her legs.  
“You are the single most unpleasant person I have _ever_ had the misfortune to encounter,” the barbarian hisses.  
  
“Go to hell!”  
  
Kanaya responds by palming Vriska’s nook. _Gods_ she’s wet, _torrentially_ wet, and she knows that Kanaya can feel it as she lifts her hips to grind them against her hand. The hand withdraws, and Vriska screeches in outrage; Kanaya pulls back then, fangs bared. “Do you honestly think I’m doing this to _please_ you?”  
  
“ _Yes!”_  
  
“No. I want you unsatisfied. I want you squirming beneath me as I deny you. I want you desperate enough to service me despite your loathing.”  
  
“ _Fuck you!”_  
  
“It’s the other way around, actually,” Kanaya purrs, but Vriska lunges upward and catches her by surprise, and the jadeblood ends up on her back, her grip on Vriska’s horn relinquished. It gives Vriska enough time to rear up on her knees and fumble her belt open; her grin is wicked.  
“Look at _you!_ ” she crows. “How the mighty have fallen.” She succeeds in wriggling her trousers off of her hips and reaches down to tangle her fingers in Kanaya’s immaculately styled hair. “What was that you were saying about me squirming beneath you?”  A rumble emerges from deep in Kanaya’s throat, her gaze glassy with hatred.  
  
“Didn’t think so. Oh well, the tables have turned anyway!” If looking predatory was a competition, Vriska Serket would win every award. “Now come on, get to it.” She jerks Kanaya’s head up, and but a moment passes before she bends to Vriska’s will. _Gods,_ she has a talented tongue, curling and teasing in all the right places; Vriska moans, rocking her hips forward and not caring at all about appearances.  
Kanaya’s hands creep up Vriska’s thighs, seeking better traction, and soon her tongue is probing delicately at the entrance of Vriska’s nook. Her efforts are rewarded with an absolutely shameless noise from her partner, along with another buck of the hips. Vriska has never been one for restraint, and she swiftly comes undone against her mouth, panting with her knuckles wound painfully tight into Kanaya’s hair. She may despise the stupid, stubborn girl, but good gods is she gifted in this arena.  
A familiar heat builds in her groin, but a stray thought rouses her from ecstasy.  
There is nothing remotely approaching a receptacle of any kind in reach.  
  
Fuck.  
  
It takes her less than a second to realize that Kanaya has stopped and is looking up at her, smirking. “Did you forget something?”  
  
Oh, _fuck her._  
  
She _planned_ this, planned her surrender, planned that Vriska’s lusts should remain unslaked. Vriska snarls and releases her grip, leaving the triumphant jadeblood to pull herself out from beneath her erstwhile captor and sashay out of the room, every swing of her hips heralding an imaginary chorus of _fuck you, Serket_.  
The door closes, and Vriska is left to stagger over to a wastebasket and furiously finish by herself. She does so with Kanaya’s stupid smug face fixed firmly in her mind’s eye and her teeth bared in fury.

Kanaya returns to her usual routine after that, making her presence known more often than ever. The Prelate teeters on the edge of a nervous breakdown at the refusal of the acolytes to do anything at all with Kanaya lurking in the background, and Vriska is forced to threaten him with the spider pit in order to get anything done. The armsmaster renounces his faith, packs his bags and leaves, declaring this a trial he is not strong enough to overcome. Consequently, Kanaya comes to permanently replace him as Vriska’s sparring partner, much to the priestess’s irritation.  
 Sometimes it’s the barbarian who initiates their matches. Most often it’s Vriska, hungering for a victory that she never achieves. Always, they fight to a standstill. That she cannot win is maddening to Vriska; she has never before in her life been denied anything, so why should some upstart foil her now? It boggles her mind in the worst possible way. What Kanaya thinks of the situation, she neither knows or cares. At least, she doesn’t until she awakens late one morning to an eyeful of sawteeth and a stone-faced Kanaya looming over her like a particularly grim piece of statuary.

A deep and profound “Uh,” is all she is able to muster until Kanaya inclines her head in a gesture that clearly says _get up._

Vriska begins to snap out an indignant “Hey, what _gives—_ “ but a bump on the nose with the end of the chainsaw silences her immediately. Instead of protesting further, she clambers out of bed, seething as Kanaya gestures towards the wardrobe. Her abductor taps her foot impatiently as Vriska squirms into a pair of pants, not even waiting before the priestess buttons her shirt to herd her out the door into the blistering Alternian sun.

 _Of all the temples in all the wastelands in the world_ , Vriska muses, _she just_ had _to walk into mine._ She hesitates, not intending to go without complaint. The teeth of Kanaya’s weapon dig into Vriska’s back; if her adversary changes her mind and decides to pull the cord, Vriska can kiss her spine goodbye. The next hour is spent in resentful silence before Vriska pipes up.  
  
“Where are you taking me?”  
  
Kanaya’s response is a terse “Home,” and nothing more, but Vriska is not deterred. “Home is about five miles thataway, _duh._ Unless you meant yours? Oops, I forgot that it’s Ghoulsville by now. My bad!” Kanaya gives her a warning jab with the chainsaw. Vriska promptly shuts up, but not for long. The miles crawl by; slogging through the sand makes for slow progress. Vriska complains – about the heat, about the sand, about how Kanaya is a _huge bitch_ – but is always silenced. Within an hour her throat is sandpaper-raw from the dry air and blowing dust. Kanaya merely trudges on in stoic silence.  
  
Eventually, the sun creeps below the horizon once more, and Vriska begins to shiver, fangs chattering in the cold desert night. Secure in her furs, Kanaya remains staunchly unsympathetic to her plight despite the many, _many_ venomous glares that Vriska throws over her shoulder. Each is rewarded with a prod, and so they blunder along through the night, step by step and mile by mile until they stumble upon their destination.  
  
For being overrun by a swarm of the unliving, Kanaya’s hive is in remarkably good shape, if oddly dilapidated for someone so fastidious. The door isn’t even ajar. Vriska imagines Kanaya closing it behind her before strolling calmly through a mob of zombies, and wonders how it is that she actually escaped. Did she leap from an upper window? Zipline out, perhaps? Or did she really just walk away? She contemplates asking, but sawteeth jab her in the back yet again and she decides against it.

Abruptly, Kanaya stops. “Here,” she announces.

“Here what?”

“Do the ritual here.”

“Or what?”

Kanaya’s mouth thins to a distinctly unamused line. She yanks the ripcord, and her chainsaw roars to life. As one, the horde turns and shambles towards them. “Or else we get eaten.”

“Ohhhhh, _fuuuuuuuuck yoooooooou,_ ” Vriska whines, but falls to her knees and begins frenziedly raking symbols into the dust with her claws. It’s the fastest, simplest setup she knows; basic zombie dismissal, no extra frills. Any of her acolytes could do it in their sleep. She wonders for a moment why Kanaya snatched her specifically, then puts it down to spite and curses as she almost bungles a banishing sigil. The swarm draws closer, mummified feet shuffling in the dust, and Vriska begins to rattle off the proper incantations as quickly as she can remember the words. There’s no time, no _time,_ and _fuck_ she’s going to die here, ripped apart like so many strands of meat--  
  
A sun-leathered hand is almost on her shoulder before it disintegrates to nothing, the first of the ghouls withering to ash.  One goes, then the next and the next and the next after that until they whirl away on the desert wind as so much sand.  The horde crumbles, and she heaves a sigh of relief.

The chainsaw falls silent, and Vriska takes that moment to pounce.

Kanaya hits the ground with an audible _whuff_ , and Vriska wastes no time in straddling her hips, her knees digging into the dust.  
Oddly, her adversary doesn’t look particularly perturbed as she bends down to whisper in Kanaya’s elegantly pointed ear. “I’m gonna make you pay for that.”  
  
“I’m not about to pay for you dragging your feet until the last possible second,” says Kanaya, sounding almost bored. Despite her tone, her eyes are bright with contempt.

“Oh, _yes_ you _will_ ,” Vriska purrs, bringing a hand up to cup her cheek like a lover.

Suddenly ending up pinned on her back takes her completely by surprise. She sputters momentarily in shock, then knees Kanaya hard in the gut. At least, she tries to, because her knee lodges in the gory tunnel that was once Kanaya’s belly.

Oh god.

She delicately eases her leg out with a sick _pop_ , and Kanaya’s shirt puddles back into place to hide it like an ocean harboring a shark. “ _What the fuck i—“_ she begins, but a low, rumbling growl tears its way free from Kanaya’s throat before maturing into an openmouthed snarl that shows every single one of her razor-sharp teeth, and her skin blazes into baleful white light. “Oh shit,” peeps Vriska, and she has time for one thought (rainbow drinker _rainbow drinker_ fuck _fuck **fuck**_ ) before Kanaya seizes one crooked horn and forcefully jerks her head to one side.  
Her tongue traces a line down Vriska’s neck in the moment before her fangs sink in deep.

It feels as though someone has stuck her with a pair of ice picks, but at the same time it’s almost thrilling. Vriska desperately strives to justify any anomalous positivity as she squirms in Kanaya’s grip; there must be pheromones, some compound released in the bite, anything. She can’t be feeling horribly aroused on her own.  Try as she might, there is no overcoming it, and so she pounds on Kanaya’s back with bony fists in a futile attempt to take out her frustration before the jadeblood seizes hold of her wrists.  
Vriska is wild with lust and rage, and it shows in her bared teeth and the way her nails catch and scrabble at the dust as Kanaya feeds. Struggling seems a viable idea only until the prick of fangs on her throat reminds her that no, she is not in control, not dominant this time, taunt and invitation twisted up in one gesture.  It has never been like this for her before, subdued and subjugated by one ostensibly inferior.  
Her mouth tastes of iron and sand and acid-sharp adrenaline, and nothing has ever been more like eating her words.

Kanaya eases her grip on one of Vriska’s arms in order to trail a hand up the priestess’s thigh, toying with the buckle of her belt. That Kanaya likely has no intention of really doing anything matters not to Vriska; she lets out a little whine of anticipation regardless. Shameful though it is, she can’t quite bring herself not to. Kanaya’s hand withdraws, and Vriska shrieks in fury for a split second before the teeth on her jugular compel her to silence.  
  
After what feels like a small eternity the pain and pressure on Vriska’s neck eases, and Kanaya pulls away, licking her lips. Too keyed up to manage a condemnation, Vriska simply tries to breathe without seeming too affected. Kanaya, unimpressed by her feigned fortitude, stands without deigning to offer her a hand up. Instead, she dusts herself off, frowning over a small tear in her skirt.

“I _hate_ you,” wheezes Vriska.

Kanaya shrugs, unconcerned. “I don’t like you much either. You’re uncouth and pointlessly violent, and your taste in décor is deplorable. Those wall-hangings are a _tragedy._ ”  
  
The only retort that Vriska can manage is a breathy “They’re _traditional!”_ as she hauls herself to her feet.  Kanaya cocks her head to one side, studying her most recent meal, and Vriska realizes with a crushing wave of humiliation that Kanaya has gone easy on her up until this very moment, and that she only has that to thank for her survival. Small mercies that she has the restraint not to cringe at her own stupidity. Instead, she gamely stares right back; Kanaya looks almost bored at her attempted intimidation. “You know you can leave, right?”  
  
Vriska blinks, surprised in spite of herself.  “What, so I’m not your weird hate slave thing now? You’re the lamest bloodsucker ever.”

“That kind of crap,” Kanaya says primly, “is only in badly-written yet inexplicably bestselling novels.”

The wind picks up, bringing a swirl of sand; Vriska spits out dust and shoves her hands in her pockets against the cold. “So that’s it? You chew on me for a couple minutes and then I get my butt back to the Temple so we can pretend this never happened? I thought we had something!”  
  
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be coming by shortly—oh.” Kanaya taps the side of her neck with a claw. “You’ve got blue on you.”  
Vriska reaches up to touch her throat, only to find that the collar of her shirt is soaked in cerulean blood. Her neck is covered as well; apparently bite marks that deep don’t heal terribly fast. She throws up her hands in disgust, turns on her heel, and begins walking in the direction of the Temple in clipped, furious strides.  
  
“Same time next week?” calls Kanaya from over her shoulder.  
  
The only response she receives is an inarticulate scream of frustration.


End file.
